CREATURE TRAINING

You can spend time between adventures training an animal or monster to obey your commands. This downtime activity requires adequate space for the creature (5 square feet for a Tiny creature, plus 10 additional square feet for each size category above Tiny), enough feed to keep it healthy, and any other materials required to conduct the training itself. These costs are all factored in the overall cost, described below.

The creature you train must have an Intelligence of 5 or lower (minimum of 1) and have a challenge rating less than your character level. Often such creatures are beasts, but a few rarer creatures can be trained, such as basilisks, chuuls, ogres, and owlbears. Constructs, oozes, plants, and undead cannot be trained. If a creature that previously received training becomes ineligible, it loses all past training results.

To adequately care for the creature, you must carry expenses equivalent to a poor lifestyle (2 sp per day) in addition to your own. A Tiny creature usually only requires expenses equivalent to a squalid lifestyle (1 sp per day). This cost must be paid every day the creature is in your charge, even if you are not actively training it. If you fail to pay the cost for three days in a row, the creature escapes and all its prior training is lost. After an escape, it has a percent chance of dying equal to the total number of days you have spent training it.

After you spend a number of consecutive days working with the creature, roll on the Training Result chart below. Add the following factors to your roll:

+1 for each consecutive day you spent training

The creature’s Intelligence score

Your Charisma modifier

If you have proficiency with Animal Handling, you may add your proficiency bonus

Once you have added any of the above factors, subtract the creature’s challenge rating from your roll to determine your final Training Result.

If you train with the creature again, you can add half of this number (rounded down) to the next Training Result roll you make. This bonus persists as long as you spend 1 hour each day to reinforce the training. Otherwise, it ends after 1 month.

This article was edited Feb. 11, 2017 based on feedback and playtesting.

ARCANE TRADITION: SCHOOL OF CHRONOMANCY

As a student of the School of Chronomancy, you have learned to feel the passage of time like a constant stream running past you. Its four-dimensional patterns weave about all things like a great fabric that you can tug and twist. Some chronomancers dedicate their lives to repairing the inevitable rifts and wrinkles that such manipulation leaves in this fabric. They accept the responsibility of such power with grim obligation. Others plunge headlong into the strange, unknown world outside of linear time, plundering its secrets for their own ends.

Chronomancy Savant

Beginning when you select this tradition at 2nd level, the gold and time you must spend to copy a chronomancy spell into your spellbook is halved.

Versant Preparation

Starting at 2nd level, you learn the hourglass cantrip if you don’t already know it. You also gain the ability to inform your past self which spells are most useful to prepare. When you finish a short rest, you can swap out up to three spells you have prepared for spells you didn’t prepare, so long as you haven’t cast them since you prepared them. You can’t use this feature again until you take a long rest.

Chronal Control

At 6th level, your mastery over the flow of time increases, allowing you to send your consciousness back in time while your body lingers in the present. This capability is represented by special dice called chronal dice. Using these dice, you assist your past self and improve the effectiveness of your actions. The catch is that when you gain the benefit of chronal control in the present, you must then take time in the future to cause it.

Your chronal dice are d6s, and you have a number of them equal to half your wizard level, rounded down. By expending a die and using your reaction, you can create one of the following effects.

After you roll an attack, ability check, or saving throw, roll the chronal control die and add the result to your previous roll.

Roll the chronal control die and add the result to the DC of the next saving throw made against a spell you cast.

You immediately move a distance up to your speed without provoking opportunity attacks.

Cancel the effects of surprise on yourself. You may also choose to cry out, preventing every creature that can hear you from being surprised.

When you end a turn during which you used this feature, you become paralyzed until the end of your next turn while you reverse time long enough to cause the above effect. You can delay becoming paralyzed by expending additional chronal dice when you use this feature. For every additional die you spend, you delay the paralyzed condition for 2 additional turns. At any time before the designated turn ends, you can choose to become paralyzed early in order to end this requirement.

While paralyzed, your consciousness travels a few moments back in time to help your past self. If you are reduced to 0 hit points before the condition ends, or if you should become paralyzed from this feature while already incapacitated for any reason, you enter a causal anomaly.

When you enter a causal anomaly, you drop anything you were holding, vanish from existence, and begin making death saving throws. If you stabilize, your body appears unconscious in the space it previously occupied along with the gear you were wearing. If you fail three death saving throws while in a causal anomaly, you cease to exist, along with whatever objects were on your person.

You regain all your expended chronal dice when you finish a long rest.

Closed Timelike Loop

When you reach 10th level, you add the timelike curve spell to your spellbook if it is not there already. You always have this spell prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you prepare each day.

In addition, whenever you cast a spell that interacts with another dimension or plane (such as banishment, contact other plane, gate, or plane shift), you can instead substitute a place in the timestream that matches the description, interacting with that temporal point as if it were a plane of existence. The point in time you choose cannot exceed a number of years ahead or behind you equal to 10 × your wizard level. At 10th level, for example, you might use the banishment spell to cast a creature 100 years backward in time.

When you cast a spell this way, it is considered a chronomancy spell for that casting in addition its usual school.

Tailored Relativity

Beginning at 14th level, you can expend a chronal die to take one additional action or bonus action. You can use that action to cast a spell, regardless of any other spells you’ve cast this turn.

Additionally, instead of gaining the benefit yourself, you can apply the chosen effect of a chronal die you expend to any creature within 30 feet of you. You still become paralyzed once the die is expended, as normal.

THE SCHOOL OF CHRONOMANCY

Chronomancy spells interact with the fabric of time. Often they slow or speed up the passage of linear events by twisting the timestream in unnatural directions. Because the practice of chronomancy is so closely guarded, the spells described in this section are added to the wizard spell list only.

*Versions of these spells exist that belong to the school of chronomancy. If not cast as a chronomancy spell, they belong to their usual schools. Spell descriptions for these spells are found in the D&D SRD and Basic Rules.

Accelerate/Decelerate

You make a minor change to the way time interacts with a single creature or object within range. Until the end of your next turn, the target’s speed is reduced or increased by 10 feet. Likewise, if the creature falls 20 feet or less before the spell ends, it lands on its feet and has resistance to any falling damage it takes.

Axis of Eternity

From you hand you blow the dust of a celestial’s bones, which becomes a whirling globe of crackling light in a 15-foot radius around you. Inside the globe, time does not exist. It is immobile and lasts for the duration. Creatures within the globe do not age, are immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition, cannot take levels of exhaustion, and do not need to sleep, eat, or breathe. They cannot benefit from a short or long rest while inside the globe.From inside, creatures can see into the present time, watching events transpire there. If any creature enters or exits the globe, the spell ends.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 9th level, the duration becomes 1 month.

Chronal Exile

9th-level chronomancyCasting Time: 1 actionRange: 30 feetComponents: V, S, M (an ornate spinning top crafted in a mold made by Ruethas himself, worth at least 200 gp per Hit Die of the target)Duration: Life of the caster

With a glimmer, you activate a large spinning top which whirls in front of you in the air. When you speak the name of a creature within range, it must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or be sent howling into the riptide outside of linear time. It ceases to exist for the duration. If it is on its native plane, it has advantage on this saving throw.

If the target succeeds on its saving throw, the spell ends with no effect and the creature is immune to this spell if you cast it again. When you cast this spell, any previous casting of it ends, meaning that you can only exile one creature at a time.

Chronal Shift

By dropping a few grains of sand, you determine the degree to which time physically affects one creature or object you can see within range. Its aging, growth, metabolism, and deterioration are either slowed or accelerated.

If you slow the stamp of time on the target, it is protected from the effects of time while it remains within range until the spell ends. It does not appear to age or wear at all, and it has advantage on death saving throws, as well as saving throws against poison effects. It cannot benefit from a short or long rest while the spell lasts.

If you choose to speed up time’s effects on the target, it appears to age or wear down at twice the normal rate. For every level of exhaustion it gains, it gains one more. If an effect causes the target to make a saving throw on each of its turns, it instead makes a saving throw at the beginning and end of each turn.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the duration increases by 1 hour for each slot level above 1st.

Chronomantic Eye

You conjure visions of the past or future, which you can watch in real time. Choose a location you’ve seen before, and a time up to 24 hours in the past or future. If you choose a time more than 1 hour from the present, you must make an Intelligence (Arcana) check to successfully reach it. The DC for this check is 15. On a failed check, you reach a number of hours, forward or backward, equal to the result you rolled.

On a success, you create an invisible sensor in the chosen time and place, through which you can see and hear for the duration as if you were there. The sensor cannot move and appears to creatures that can see invisible objects as a tiny, dark orb with cat-like pupils.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, you can increase the distance you send the sensor in time by 24 hours for each slot level above 5th.

Compressed Oration

With lightning speed, you spurt a string of high-pitched syllables at a creature within range that can hear you. The clipped, percussive sound only lasts a few moments, and sounds like bizarre gibberish to everyone in hearing other than the target. The chosen creature, on the other hand, hears it as an extensive communication, up to 10 minutes of normal speech.

Consecutive Loop

A creature you can see within range must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or become trapped in a single moment of time. Until the spell ends, the creature spends each of its turns repeating whatever actions it took on its last turn in exact detail. If it used the Attack action, it does so again, targeting the same space it attacked previously. If it cast a spell and has a similar slot available, it likewise repeats that action targeting the same space (or a creature within the same space) as it did on the repeating turn. If any condition interferes with the action, the target stubbornly attempts to perform it in vain.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 8th level, the duration increases to 1 hour. At 9th level, it increases to 3 days.

Cosmic String

You touch a creature or object, and it is instantly slung along a perfectly horizontal line of concentrated time fabric to a point you choose within range. This distance is reduced by 1 foot for each pound the target weighs.

Convergent Strike

With a fierce incantation you slow the passage of time to a torpid pace, just long enough to execute your next attack with deadly accuracy. You have advantage on the next attack roll you make before the end of your turn. If the result of this attack is 20 or higher, it is a critical hit.

Delay

1st-level chronomancyCasting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when you see a creature within 30 feet of you get hit by a weapon or spell attack, or fail a saving throwRange: 30 feetComponents: V, SDuration: Concentration, up to 1 round

You hold your hand up with the palm facing the creature that triggered your reaction, and place a chronal ward on it. Until the spell ends, any damage, condition, or other effect caused by the triggering event fails to occur. When the spell does end, however, the target is immediately affected as if the attack, spell, or saving throw had just been completed.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the duration increases by 1 round for each slot level above 1st.

Despair of Infinite Agency

One creature you can see and which can see you makes a Wisdom saving throw as you confront it with a mind-rending awareness of every possible timeline which belongs to it. Visions of the infinite choices it could have made during every moment of its life flash through the creature’s mind. On a failed save it takes 8d10 psychic damage, or half as much damage on a success.

EXISTENTIAL PARADOX

When you cast this spell, you focus on a creature you can see within range. The creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or have its consciousness thrust back in time to a moment before it existed. The existential shock of the experience causes it to take 20d10 psychic damage. If this damage reduces it to 0 hit points, the creature ceases to exist. Whether the save fails or succeeds, the creature gains a form of indefinite madness.

FOLDS OF TIME

5th-level chronomancyCasting Time: 1 actionRange: TouchComponents: V, S, M (a large cloth or cloak)Duration: 1 roundYou draw a length of cloth across a creature, burying it in a fold of the timestream. It becomes invisible and hidden from all creatures until the end of your next turn. This spell ends if the target attacks or casts a spell.

HOURGLASS

With a verbal command and a simple gesture, you capture a mental imprint of what you personally saw during the 6 seconds directly preceding the casting of this spell. For the duration, you can create an image of the imprint inside an empty vessel you are holding. You can play the imprinted sight in real time, reverse, and slow motion as repeatedly as you want until the spell ends. It is visible to anyone close enough to see it.

Precipitous Relativity

You drastically accelerate or reverse the aging of one beast, dragon, humanoid, or plant you can see within range. Most crops and flowers are automatically killed by this spell, or transformed into a seed. Mature perennial plants may either change size by one category or have little visible effect, according to the GM’s discretion.

Creatures must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or grow 5d10 years older or younger (your choice). If its age is decreased below 0, the creature becomes an infant. It doesn’t die if aged beyond its typical life span.

By default, creatures are considered adults (for humans, ages 18-39), but your GM may choose to modify the effects of this spell based on the particular circumstance. An elderly cult leader may already be aged, or a young commoner just 10 years old, making it an adolescent. In such examples, the creature changes only enough to represent the difference between its starting age category and its new one.

Many creatures age differently from humans. In these cases, the GM makes a ruling based on available information on the lifespan of the targeted creature. If an adult dragon’s age were reduced from 140 years to 90 years, for example, your GM might simply swap its stat block for a young dragon of the same color. Starting age should be determined before you roll the dice.

This spell has no effect on monster types other than beasts, dragons, humanoids, and plants, but your GM may apply an exception if the creature is capable of aging.The following effects come into play when a creature’s age category changes.

Infant. The creature’s ability scores all become 2, its maximum hit points drop to 1, its speed is reduced to 5 feet, its size is Tiny, it loses all benefits of its race, class, and background, and it is prone and stunned for the duration. Everything it was wearing or holding when the spell was cast drops to the ground around it. Humans up to age 3 belong to this category.

Child. The creature’s ability scores take a -8 penalty (minimum of 2), its maximum hit points drop to 3 + its Constitution modifier, and its speed is halved for the duration. Everything it was wearing when the spell was cast, as well as Heavy objects it was holding, drop to the ground around it. Humans aged 4-9 are children.

Adolescent. The creature receives a -2 penalty to its Wisdom, Strength, and Charisma scores, its maximum hit points are lowered by 3 for each of its Hit Dice, and its speed is reduced by 5 feet for the duration. Humans fall into this category from ages 10-17.

Middle-aged. The creature receives a +2 bonus to its Intelligence and Wisdom scores, a -2 penalty to its Constitution, and has disadvantage on Strength (Athletics) and Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks for the duration. A human between 40 and 65 is middle-aged.

Aged. The creature receives a +2 bonus to its Wisdom score, a -2 penalty to its Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma scores, its maximum hit points are lowered by 20 (to a minimum of 3 + its Constitution modifier), all terrain is considered difficult terrain, attack rolls against it have advantage, and it automatically fails Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws for the duration. Between the ages of 66 and 100, humans are considered aged.

Ancient. The creature’s ability scores are all reduced to 4 and it is stunned for the duration, in addition to all the effects listed under aged. It drops everything it was holding when the spell was cast. Any creature past the upper limit of its life span is ancient.

Scan Timethread

Passing your hands in intricate gestures around a prostrate creature, you extend your vision into its past and present. You learn its exact age and see its happiest memory, as well as one grim moment from its future, determined by your GM. If the creature is older than 1,000 years, you take 2d10 psychic damage.

Specious Relativity

You ring a bell, causing one creature that can hear it within range to lose all sense of linear time. As minutes and hours pass, the target’s internal clock is so disoriented that it cannot tell the span of one moment to another. For the duration, years seem like seconds and vice versa.

When the spell ends, an accurate memory of events slowly returns to the target over 1d10 days.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the duration increases by 1 hour for each slot level above 2nd.

Temporal Barrier

An invisible, floating wall of distorted spacetime appears at a point you choose within range, in any orientation. You can form it into a hemispherical dome or a sphere with a radius of up to 15 feet, or you can shape a flat surface made up of ten 10-foot-square panels. Each panel must be contiguous with another panel. In any form, the wall is 1 inch thick and lasts for the duration.

When the wall appears, each creature within its area must make a Strength saving throw, which it can choose to fail. On a failed save, a creature is incapacitated until the end of its turn. While incapacitated, creatures have their speed reduced to 5 feet and are immune to falling damage. Any creature that touches or passes through the wall must likewise make this saving throw.

Temporal Tether

Your body is temporarily bound to its current axis in the fabric of time. Choose a space or creature you are touching. Until the spell ends, when you or the target are included in the effect of a chronal die or a chronomancy spell of 3rd-level or lower, you choose whether both of you are affected or neither or you are affected. A wizard using a chronal control effect can expend two additional chronal dice to ignore your use of this spell. If both you and the target are affected by the spell or chronal control effect, you cannot prevent it.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 5th level or higher, its effect works on any spell whose level is less than the level of the spell slot you used.

Temporal Winch

6th-level chronomancyCasting Time: 1 actionRange: SelfComponents: V, S, M (the string of a fiddle, harp, or other instrument)Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

The timestream around you is restricted or expanded, affecting nearby creatures’ perception of time. You create a 30-foot sphere centered on yourself, within which time appears to either slow or accelerate.

If you choose to slow the manifestation of time, all creatures within the sphere can take an additional action or bonus action on their turn while the spell lasts. If instead you choose to accelerate it, the affected creatures can only take one bonus action and move a distance of half their speed (in whatever order they choose), after which their turn ends.

Time Dilation

When you cast this spell, you stretch the timestream toward yourself, experiencing events a little slower than those around you, and enabling you to react quickly to what occurs. For the duration, you have advantage on attack rolls and ability checks.

At any point before the spell ends, you can shift your place in the initiative order to the present—though you can’t take another turn until after the end of the current round. Your turn remains there in the initiative order until you move it again as part of this spell.

Timelike Curve

4th-level chronomancyCasting Time: 1 actionRange: SelfComponents: V, S, M (a tail feather of a young robin, and the egg from which it hatched)Duration: Instantaneous

You tug at the fabric of time and create a sphere extending 15 feet from you in each direction, causing events within that area to be undone. No change is apparent to observers outside the sphere, but those within it see a blur of motion as the actions and movement of the last few moments play out in reverse. The current round starts over at the top of the initiative order as if none of it had occurred.Everything outside the sphere must progress exactly as it did previously, including the actions and die results of creatures not within the sphere. Characters within the sphere, however, can alter their actions and perform new rolls based on knowledge of what originally happened.

On their turns, characters affected by the spell perform whichever actions they choose, rolling new results. They might use this opportunity to get another chance at an attack that missed, to take the Dodge action, or to end their movement in a different space, avoiding some unpleasant hazard. When the initiative order reaches a creature outside the sphere, it must act exactly as it did before the spell was cast, and keep whatever die results were originally rolled.

Because the events outside this spell’s reach are now predetermined, the new actions may interact with them differently. Creatures that used a ranged attack or spell on a particular character may find that there’s a different target in the space they originally chose, or that a barrier of some kind has gotten in the way.

If an action from outside the spell’s area of effect is obstructed or foiled, the GM determines how the new timeline resolves. Targets inside the sphere may now have cover or be obscured, changing the outcome of the attack. Likewise, an attack from outside may now have advantage or disadvantage. In such cases, count the original roll as the first, then make a second roll.

Within your veins lies the darkest and most dangerous form of magic. Blood is a powerful arcane channeler. Only the foolish or the very wise tamper with it as a component, and those who do often suffer as much as they excel. As a blood sorcerer, you substitute self-mutilation for study. You may not be as well read as some spellcasters, but the path you’ve chosen taxes the body, not the mind.

Some blood sorcerers discover these occult secrets in ancient grimoires, learning to carve hideous but powerful symbols in their flesh. Others enter the apprenticeship of a vile mentor who personally instructs them. Whether you use blood magic to help others or to serve your own ambitions, it is a practice that will leave you scarred, literally and figuratively.

BLOOD-POWERED SPELLS

When you select this origin at 1st level, you learn the dark arts necessary to turn blood into an arcane enhancement. You can use blood as a replacement for the material components for any sorcerer spell you cast, including those with a cost listed. Your spell save DC for enchantment and necromancy spells increases by 2 while you use your blood as a material component.

Blood Blight

At 6th level, your blood begins to manifest occult properties that enhance your magic and leave you in pain. You can spend hit points to recover sorcery points. As a bonus action, declare the number of sorcery points you’re recovering and expend that many hit dice. Roll the expended dice and take that much piercing or slashing damage.

Additionally, the temperature of your blood becomes intolerably high. You are in a constant state of physical agitation and discomfort, and you find yourself going to extreme lengths to sooth it. For example, you might refuse to set foot in a room where a fire is burning in the hearth, or you might flee the sight of hot food or drink. You have odd physical tics that others find eccentric or off-putting because of the eternal fire raging in your veins.

Objects and creatures that touch your blood take 1 fire damage. You are immune to damage caused by your own blood.

Wounded Vigor

Beginning at 14th level, pain becomes a source of strength to you. When you take piercing or slashing damage, you immediately gain temporary hit points equal to the damage taken.

Primordial Surge

At 18th level, your spells seek out the blood of others. Living creatures that have taken damage and have less than 20 hit points remaining have disadvantage on your spells’ saving throws.

Not all vampires are made. Some are born, inheriting the abhorrent curse of their undead parentage. Vampires bear children only rarely over the centuries, more often rendering the honor to the wretched mortals upon whom they prey. The young resulting from such a union aren’t always evil, but they inevitably manifest certain insidious powers of the vampire. Sorcerers with the vampire bloodline origin face a harrowing choice: channel their inner darkness into a worthy cause as penance for the sins of millennia, or give in to the exhilarant predator within.

Vampire Weaknesses

When you choose this origin at 1st level, you gain the following susceptibilities.

You’re physically incapable of entering a residence unless one of the occupants invites you in.

You have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks while in sunlight.

If a piercing weapon made of wood is driven into your heart while you’re incapacitated, you become paralyzed until the stake is removed.

Undead Ferocity

Starting when you choose this origin at 1st level, your unarmed attacks deal 1d6 damage. You may choose to bite with your unarmed attack to deal piercing damage instead of bludgeoning.

You also have natural armor, making your AC equal to 13 + your Dexterity modifier while you’re not wearing armor.

SPIDER CLIMB

When you choose this origin at 1st level, you gain the ability to climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.

Lifeblood

At 6th level, your taste for blood becomes insatiable, but the surge of power it grants is even more alluring. When you deal damage with a bite attack against a living creature that is incapacitated, restrained, or that you have grappled, you can spend 2 sorcery points to deal an additional 1d6 necrotic damage. You regain hit points equal to the necrotic damage taken. You can spend up to 6 points this way on a single bite, adding 1d6 necrotic damage (and hit points regained) for every 2 sorcery points spent. When you bite a creature that is charmed by you, it doesn’t end the charmed condition.

Children of the Night

Starting at 14th level, you can call upon the creatures of darkness to do your bidding. As an action, you spend 3 sorcery points and call 2d4 swarms of bats or rats if the sun isn’t up. If you’re outdoors, you can choose to call 3d6 wolves instead. The creatures take 1d4 rounds to arrive and remain for 1 hour, or until you are reduced to 0 hit points. During that time, you can dictate their actions with verbal commands or dismiss them as a bonus action. You cannot use this feature again until you take a long rest.

Immortal Corpse

Beginning at 18th level, you have resistance to necrotic damage, and bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons. Your body no longer ages with the passage of time.

OPTION: PUREBLOOD VAMPIRE

The vampire bloodline origin provides a way to play a character who is deeply changed by the influence of the vampire, usually because of a single vampire ancestor. If you instead would like to play a character whose ancestry is entirely vampiric, a descendant of Iarmov himself, you can use the optional traits below in place of choosing a race.

This option doesn’t perfectly replicate the vampire stat block with player character traits. If your character is transformed into a vampire or otherwise gains the full power of their kind, your DM should simply follow the guidelines for PCs as vampires found elsewhere. The traits below allow you to play a young vampire whose powers have not yet reached their full potential. They, along with the features of the vampire bloodline origin, create a gradual process through which your character gains the powers native to the vampire.

At your DM’s discretion, you may undertake a particular quest or initiation rite to replace all the below traits and your vampire bloodline features with the traits and actions of a true vampire. This will greatly increase the character’s effectiveness, and so DMs are warned to consider the ramifications of allowing a player to reach full vampire potential. Such a change usually alters the vampire’s alignment to lawful evil.

Vampire Weaknesses

You have the following weaknesses.

You take 20 acid damage if you end your turn in running water.

You take 20 radiant damage when you start your turn in sunlight.

Darkvision

You have darkvision within 120 feet.

FORM OF THE BAT

You can use an action to polymorph into a Tiny bat or back into your true form. While in bat form, you can’t speak or cast spells, your walking speed becomes 5 feet, you have a flying speed of 30 feet, and the only attacks you can make are bite attacks. Your other statistics remain unchanged. Anything you are wearing polymorphs with you, but nothing that you are carrying does. If you die while polymorphed, you revert to your true form.

Undeath

You are considered undead rather than living. Your body does not age with the passage of time.

Throughout Vinramar, there are organizations whose power and influence extends into most regions of the world. These factions pursue goals connected to a particular philosophy, deity, or agenda, and represent the groups that have at least a minor presence in any region where you choose to set a campaign.

AVAN ENCLAVES

Once a sacred order of knights-errant, Avan enclaves have become a secretive and widely misunderstood group. Their operatives valiantly combat slavery and injustice from the shadows, running underground communities where escaped slaves and Jharric worshippers can live a relatively peaceful existence.

Members of this faction espouse the ideals of Ava, goddess of love and courage. They condemn slavery and swear themselves to the protection of life and innocence. Where either are threatened, they bring deliverance, justice, and healing.

Avans cleverly hide their enclaves in secluded, defensible locations—forests, ruins, or caves—where enemies are unlikely to dig around. The location of this hideout is a closely guarded secret, revealed only to a Devout whom the Seneschal, or enclave leader, has approved. Those liberated by the enclave are offered a place to live among the Avans, but they must come and go blindfolded with an escort until they prove themselves worthy of the rank of Devout. Most enclaves consist of living quarters, a shrine or chapel, and an orphanage where members care for rescued children.

Once operatives advance beyond the initiatory ranks, they join one of two affiliations within the enclave: the Order of the Rose, which oversees and defends the enclave, or the Order of the Thorn, which conducts missions outside it. It is common for enclaves to include operatives devoted to other Jharric deities, especially Iala, the goddess of light and healing.

The highest ranking and most senior member of the enclave is named Seneschal and entrusted with the oversight of all business, direction over ritual observances, and the locations of the other Avan enclaves. The female Seneschal with the highest renown is named Matriarch, and charged with coordinating the actions of the many enclaves.

At times Ava herself reincarnates to lead the faith personally as a mortal of a given race. At such times she chooses a male husband to lead alongside her, known as the Consort of the Mother. Such a man commands unrivaled status among Avan devotees.

Typical Quests. Common Avan enclave efforts include seizing the supplies of a local tyrant to support the poor, protecting a jhareth from the Eitharmos, returning a stolen child to her parents, and escorting escaped slaves to freedom through a trail of hideaways and safe houses.

THE BLACK DANS

The King’s Army and Navy of Trentsmund is the foremost military force in the world. Its soldiers, known as the Black Dans for their iconic sable uniforms, can be found stationed across Vinramar fighting for the glory of Trentsmund—and the occasional spoils of war.

As a military outfit, the Black Dans are highly structured around a central command. From the capital at Forteth, the King of Trentsmund commands his forces through military councils, but the true power of the Black Dans lies with the company and field officers themselves. To the extent they keep their superiors happy, these characters live above the law in foreign lands, pursuing what action and renown they can within the bounds of military hierarchy.

Little stands in the way for any man or woman to join the Trentsmunder military. The King has offered 1 silver penny’s pay (sp) per month to those who don the Black of the Dans. If they join the Army, they become privates. If the Navy, they become seamen.

A private or seaman earning 1 renown is elevated to the position of sergeant or master-at-arms. Pay increases to 1 gold dollar (gp) per month, then doubles each time he or she moves up a rank, to a total of 256 gp per month for a general. With enough distinction, a doughty soldier can make a fine living. But getting those promotions takes grit and daring. Many die in their pursuit.

Alternatively, a character of sufficient means and reputation can purchase a commission in the Black Dans by paying the equivalent of 25 year’s pay at the desired rank. A captain’s commission totals 1,200 gp, while a colonel’s reaches 9,600 gp. This dubious practice has occasionally put a brainless dandy at the head of a column, it’s true. But a fool that daring usually dies as quickly as he buys his rank.

Each rank comes with an assigned command, a number of privates, ships, or other duties in the officer’s charge. These appointments are made by ranking officers, and can be favorable or not. Some soldiers are green or unruly, and some ships are cursed.

The exact duties of an officer depend not only on rank, but on the objectives of the engagement and his or her particular assignment. Intelligence officers and elite unit officers get the greatest share of adventure as they trek beyond enemy lines for tactical missions and espionage. Elite units are usually made up of a small detachment of privates hand-picked for specialized objectives like diplomacy, reconnaissance, science operations, or guerilla maneuvers. These are the daring men and women who win wars.

Some officers might pursue appointment to an intelligence position, chasing agents and manipulating the flow of information to gain the King an advantage on the field. Each position has a required rank, allowing a promising spy to eventually command a network of operatives in all manner of subterfuge.

Service in the Navy is more insular than the Army, with seamen generally confined to one vessel and captain. Officers in the King’s Navy are personally chosen by their captains, who frequently promote friends and allies. Rivalries aboard a navy vessel can be bitter, all the more so when the ship is alone at sea for months.

Typical Quests. Standard quests in the Black Dans include capturing a strategic fort or town, negotiating an alliance with local factions, gathering critical materials or information on enemy movements, and piloting a blockade run.

THE EITHARMOS

The Eitharmos is the last vestige of an ancient crusader cult sworn to purge the world of the jharethil and those who associate with them. Its warriors are called forth from time to time, mustering from the fabled city of Rhûminos like spectral hunters arrayed for war. The old tales rehearse the pursuit and slaughter of the heretics with fascination and dread.

The truth of the Eitharmos myths lies in the forgotten past. Etholchan teachings hint that Arrochimeir, eldest son of Daemoth, was slain with seven wounds in a cataclysmic battle now only half-remembered. In reverence to him, the hunters of the Eitharmos are inducted by the Wounding Rite, in which seven deadly cuts are made in the novitiate’s flesh. By the dark blessing of Arrochimeir, these Seven Wounds suspend the hunter from aging.

Crusaders are drawn in by this promise of eternal life through inquisition. Unlike other Daemothites, they concern themselves deeply with questions of purity and absolution. Their overarching goal to cleanse Vinramar of those they consider heretical is a twisted reflection of their need to be accepted by divinity.

Once a novitiate undergoes the Wounding Rite, he or she ascends through four ranks of military and religious training to become an Otu’lesk, one of the elite commanders overseeing 500 Arui each. The Otu’leskim are permitted for the first time to meet the Ouleithirim, the circle of seven supreme judges, and take instruction directly from them. With every mission, every kill, their devotion and absolutism grow. By obeisance to the Ouleithirim, their demonic strength becomes indelible.

While the most radical among them carefully amass power over hundreds of years, weak and disaffected hunters are punished as savagely as the heretics they stalk. Hundreds of deserters from the order live throughout Vinramar, lingering in a half-waking perpetuity for as long as it takes the Eitharmos to root them out. Deathless exile gnaws at them with torturing questions about right and wrong. When given a chance at redemption, these forsworn crusaders often rise to the occasion.

Typical Quests. Typical Eitharmos quests include tracking a fleeing jhareth, sifting clues to the location of a hidden Jharric chapter house, negotiating with a reluctant informant, and gathering novitiates from the four corners of Vinramar.

THE ETHOLCHAN CHURCH

The more orthodox followers of Daemoth belong to the Etholchan Church. This sect preserves many of the religious traditions of Ancient Mohtra, including ceremonial dress, child sacrifice, and a code of fraternity that encourages loyalty to the Church above all else.

Etholchan priests are respected throughout the West as a symbol of pre-human heritage and embassadors of the most powerful religious organization in the world. Though most don’t openly wield divine magic, a priest who does display the miraculous power of Daemoth becomes a treasured—or sometimes hated—figure among Daemothites.

The core Etholchan philosophy is that Daemoth (to them the supreme Creator) asks nothing but obedience to his authority. Rather than a set of commandments or code of behavioral expectations, the Church rewards those who follow the specific instructions of their god, as voiced by church leaders. The phrase, “It is God’s to sacrifice,” is a common adage among Etholchans, implying that Daemoth doesn’t care how you live, so long as you act when he or his representatives call.

While obedience is their chiefest virtue, weakness is the Etholchans’ deadliest sin. To show frailty, fail, or fall behind is to become unworthy. This doctrine has been championed by the Etholchan Inquisition over the centuries, justifying (in their minds) the systematic execution of heretics, including the jharethil and Jharric followers. To most Etholchans, the punishment of weakness is a law of nature.

All of the Etholchan hierarchy answers to the Hohram, a divine seer that is the sect’s central figurehead. Commanding the absolute obedience of every Etholchan in Vinramar, the Hohram is perhaps the most powerful person in the world.

Followers and priest alike wear the ritual dress of the Etholchans whenever in public, as a symbol of Deamoth’s constant hold over the life of the wearer. The dress consists of a tunic that laces up the front, worn with a wide purple girdle trimmed in black. Both are often worn in conjunction with other clothing, but are required public dress for believers in good standing.

Typical Quests. Common quests in the Etholchan Church include investigating the a person’s claim to be a daemon, rescuing holy writings or sacred ground from being defiled by Jharric believers, running the political campaign of an Etholchan political candidate, and establishing an Etholchan mission in the outlands.

HUMENHI WAYFARERS

As the most prominent network of Senfaerist temples, the Humenhi Wayfarers have their Sacred Mysteries throughout Vinramar. Each of these doctrines corresponds to one of the 36 Methods of Liung Do, an array of martial arts techniques developed by Humenhi, the founder of the discipline. A wayfarer’s training begins with the simple virtues of restraint, discipline, modesty, and mutual trust.

The headquarters of Humenhi Senfaerism is the Liung Do Temple in Aldalar. From its secluded monasteries—and smaller temples scattered across the world—rise highly capable monks of every order. These enlightened warriors champion Senfaer’s charge to protect the four worlds from threats beyond the stars.

To join a temple and become a Peregrine, aspiring wayfarers need only prove their earnest determination to receive training. This is often done through an initiation quest such as delivering a message to a faraway monastery, caring for monks mutated by aberrations, or learning the first four Methods of Liung Do. Once the quest is complete, the aspirant takes the Humenhi vow and dons the robe of the wayfarer. The vow includes a promise to refrain from indulgence, deceit, intoxication, sensuality, and flippancy.

A wayfarer advances within the temple where he or she is accepted. Time, experience, and rigorous training all factor into this progression. With each rank are taught additional Methods of Liung Do and their corresponding Mysteries, through ritual, martial arts drills, and practical application. It’s common for some to find the higher-level doctrines bizarre or distressing.

THE INFERNOSSOS

The Infernossos is a network of covenanted signatories—damned souls who have contracted their services to the archdevil Gauren. Most signatories are clerics and warlocks looking for unholy power, but there are also rogues who serve the archdevil as spies and assassins.

With written covenants serving as the basis for all service within the Infernossos, the organization uses complex bylaws to enforce fealty, encourage patronage, and strengthen its interests throughout the world. Its operation often resembles a crime ring dependent on reciprocity of services. Authority within the Infernossos resides with a system of courts, whose Provosts and Prelates exact the terms of each signatory’s pact.

Precise goals and duties within the Infernossos depend largely on the agenda of the individual devils to whom a signatory has sworn service. Often they involve the wielding of political, economic, or social influence in a manner beneficial to others within the network. Control over mortal affairs is endlessly appealing to the fiends that hold sway over the infernal courts, but above all, the Infernossos seeks recruits. To that end, signatories that reach the rank of Notary are charged with headhunting new members.

Typical Quests. Common quests within the Infernossos include stealing or replacing official documents, assassinating disruptive individuals, punishing other signatories for disloyalty, and gaining the favor of an influential politician or merchant.

THE JHARRIC FAITH

Historically, the Jharric Faith was a highly organized religious tradition with strong connections to the ancient jharethil. Millennia of persecution have reduced their congregations to small groups that pray together at hidden mountain shrines. Secrecy is all that stands between them and execution by the Eitharmos.

The Jharric Pantheon is comprised of Jharus, Loragg, Ava, and Iala. Three of these four are served by a single religious hierarchy which mediates between the gods and the Faithful that revere them. Ava, however, is represented by her own operatives within the Avan Enclaves, somewhat apart from the other Jharric gods. Within the Jharric Faith, priests that reach a renown of 10 pledge themselves to one deity, whether as Ensigns of Jharus, Abbots of Loragg, Ialhalil of Iala, or joining an order within a local Avan Enclave.

In the secret cities of the jharethil, hidden from the sorrows of the world, the church is still organized as it was of old. The reigning king or queen serves as High Priest or Priestess over the city, heading both a political and a religious council. A Lansarus sits on the religious council with all others of that rank, and the Elders each govern one congregation of the Faithful, called a chapter. Chapters meets in their own chapter houses, and employ a number of Priests and Votives relative to the size of the congregation.

The Faithful are deeply concerned with the principle of mahat, which represents the five keys of the natural universe: balance, justice, life, purity, and truth. Mahat is both a concept and a force. According to the teaching of the Jharric Faith, it is what protects the four worlds and all natural life from the infectious influence of the Darkplane. It emanates from Salvendum, sowing life and ordering matter by natural laws.

Members of the Jharric Faith are expected to preserve mahat by embodying its five keys—maintaining personal balance, sustaining order and justice, preserving life, encouraging moral rectitude, and speaking only truth. Of course, this is far easier said than done, especially since much of the world sees the Faithful as unclean heretics.

Priests of Jharus. Among the priests of the Faith, those that serve Jharus are the quickest to action. The elite of their order, the Ensigns, train in both combat and the channeling of divine magic. Those who follow Jharus are expected to uphold his tenets and succor the weak. Though they embrace all five keys of mahat, Ensigns tend to place more emphasis on justice than life, and consider sin or oppression sufficient justification for capital punishment.

Priests of Loragg. Abbots oversee the preservation of religious and historical records, as well as the defense of sacred relics. Their work often requires seclusion, prompting the building of separate abbeys where they can organize, translate, and transcribe the sacred writings of the jharethil. The largest abbeys house hundreds of Abbots, Priests, and Votives, all in the sacred charge of the Head Abbot. Abbeys are rare outside jhareth cities, with the Abbots instead acting as wandering scribes and scholars.

Priests of Ava. In many ways, Ava is a goddess apart from the other three, but a priest of the Jharric Faith can use renown gained from that organization to advance within an Avan Enclave.

Priests of Iala. Iala’s shrines are often arranged beside those of Jharus, since light and purity are precursors to justice and life. Priests who focus their faith toward Iala are promised virtue, clarity, and health. To the Ialhalil, nothing is more important than the capacity to forgive and mend.

Typical Quests. Quests typical among the Faithful include performing healings in a plague-infested village, smuggling holy relics out of an Etholchan city, interrupting a demonic ritual, and cleansing a desecrated temple to Jharus.

THE MOZRALCHIC ORDER

The Mozralchic Order is a circle of agents specializing in witch-hunts, slaying monsters, and protection against the dark arts.

Mozralchic agents train dutifully to combat evil and unnatural influences through investigation, diplomacy, and subterfuge. Aberrations, monstrosities, primordials, and undead are their primary targets, though they are often consulted in the detection of fiends and the Black Arcane. Perhaps because they consider themselves to serve a greater good beyond the rivalries of nations, agents of Mozralchi have a history of acting as unofficial advisors and ambassadors between polities. To formalize their role as diplomats, members of the order dress in white and wear the Hamzara, or black seal, a ring or amulet engraved with a protective sigil.

In their ambition to cleanse Vinramar of all that is unnatural, the Mozralchic Order dabble in the very practices that they combat, including those traditionally forbidden by most societies. Fighting fire with fire, so to speak, is a tactic the order considers heroic. Agents without the grit to endure the consequences of such perilous endeavors often meet a woeful end. The order isn’t delicate about punishing its own.

Mozralchic agents are required to learn the speech of ravens, using the birds as messengers that can’t be intercepted or interrogated. At times the need for secrecy extends beyond their quarries—the Etholchan Church and nations traditionally under its influence are highly disdainful of the Mozralchic agents, disrupting their operations and imprisoning or executing them with the least excuse. Outside the region of Motta, most rulers at least begrudgingly respect the order.

The newest initiates of the order are simply called Brother or Sister. After a period of trial as an Agent and receiving the ceremonial vestment as a Scapular, the novice is accepted as a fully gazetted member. The order is governed by the 13 most senior Hallowed Intercessors, called the Council of Thirteen.

Typical Quests. Standard quests of Mozralchic agents include infiltrating a coven of witches, tracking the movements of a vampire, interrogating a necromancer, negotiating terms of surrender from one ruler to another, and coordinating a nationwide response to an onlaught of primordials.

NUSALMATMA

No mercenaries command so fearsome a name as the Goltari soldiers known as the Nusalmatma. Under the banner of the shedu (a winged bull with the head of a telmatra) they hire out their services as scouts, bodyguards, law enforcement, and elite military units.

The sheer number of Nusalmatma mercenaries is a testament to the organization’s legacy and stability. Satellite camps across Arrochule, Arwest, Syrikhal, and the Norlythe function as recruitment and deployment centers, shipping out hundreds of Nusalmatma to quell rebellions, rout levied troops, and keep the peace across Vinramar. It’s a life of discipline and prestige.

These mercenary practices are rooted in the traditional telmatra warrior culture of the fifth century. The name Nusalmatma originates from the caste of slave soldiers called nusalham-atra (literally, the people of the chain and sword), that seized power over the telmatra in the wake of the humans’ arrival in Goltaraim. Mercenaries track their kills—even those they’re not proud of—with trophies from the bodies, and are paid a correlating commission. With the wrong temperaments present, this system can easily turn a peacekeeping force into a death squad.

As might be expected, the first goal of a mercenary is cash. The most coveted jobs are those that pay handsomely, such as the household guard of a wealthy patron. But even the richest noble can’t match the commissions that a genuine war brings.

The organization as a whole, however, does place value on the good of common folk. When a job demands the Nusalmatma take a stand on behalf of decent, ordinary people, its soldiers truly shine in their duty. Captains take notice of this sort of honor, fostering and promoting recruits that display it.

Typical Quests. Typical Nusalmatma quests include defending a food store from bandits, training a force of levied farmers to fight as a column, suppressing riots, and setting up a constabulary in a frontier city.